Carly got him up and delivered him to me before she headed to work. He just lay next to me in a daze for a few minutes. He then asked to watch Max and Ruby. An episode of that, then he agreed to try the new Magic Schoolbus and we watched one of those. We then read the Max Axiom Food Chains book and he was a mouse. We then got the piano and did Piano Maestro for quite awhile. When I got up and was getting him food he switched to Easy Music and was practicing “Mary had a little lamb”. He asked about the words and wanted me to write a new verse, so I added one where they head home.
He ate Mac and cheese for breakfast, as he is now rejecting every breakfast choice except for crackers and dry cereal. He played with the poop spinner: “Dada, I love this poop spinner…why does it spin?” He watched the Cover your cough song and a few other PlayKids videos while I exercised. On my phone we did some Arabic and August looked up Arabic words including ‘ok’. He then played with the Lego cars and requested that we throw away the throw pillow that is coming apart.
We read the first half of The 26-Story Treehouse. A few minutes after we stopped he said “Dada, don’t ever keep me too safe.” That happens to Terry, one of the characters in the story. I took a shower and he watched one more Max and Ruby. Then his bath. He arranged all the bath letters in what he said was a bassoon: “I’m gonna make a bassoon. It costs billions of shekels. It will cost so much shekels the world doesn’t even have that many shekels.” “Tada! A fancy bassoon!” At one point he started dumping water out of the bath too close to the edge and I threatened to take away the watering can. He then said “Dada, can I have the squirt car? Or is that going away TOO?” And since I won’t let him bang the rocking chair anymore to get chocolate he was now banging the shower door: “There! That’s another reason way of getting chocolate! Banging that door!”
Got him out of his bath and suggested pizza for lunch: “Pizza with broccoli? Ewww, disgusting.” “Maybe pizza with eggs and rocks and clothes. Does that sound good?”
Downstairs he started a big conversation when he asked “When you are sick and have to stay in bed is a parent there?” I explained that one of us would stay home with him until he was old enough to stay home on his own: “I want to stay with somebody at home until 19 BILLION years. Then I will want to stay by myself.” We ended up talking about the legal requirements of taking care of kids and how it would be the parent that would get in trouble. And I said that mama and I had to take take care of him until he was 18. He was sit/standing on the chair and in a very cute voice said “Thank you!”
He added a live version of “Given to Fly” to his playlist. I mentioned that I really liked Pearl Jam when I was younger. He asked why I liked Pearl Jam so much when I was a kid. We had some pizza, although he didn’t eat much. We played a little Dust Buster then I went to do dishes when he kept hitting the ‘octave’ buttons. He played a little more, then was lying on the floor. He said “we don’t know if Daria is going to give me cookies or not.” I confirmed that he meant Daria, the girl in his activity class. I think he was remembering when we took cookies and he gave a cookie to Daria.
He told me “Dada, when I’m four I’ll stay up at night.” He was then playing his bassoon and singing part of “The 12 Days of Christmas”. Speaking of his bassoon he said “Dada, you know I got this for free. Why’d I get it for free?” My reply: “Because it is a piece of garbage.” He talked about the plugs and which don’t work for awhile, then told me “Dada, I love the bassoon I found. It’s so frizpan.” (Maybe a reference to Plumdog when she describes the snow as something like ‘fritzy’).
We left at 1:50, walking with his bike up to the school. He asked “Can you sing I’ve been working on the railing road?” I didn’t know all the words, so we looked them up and listened to a version sung by Pete Seeger.
We got to school and first went to the library. A class was coming so we grabbed a big stack of Berenstain Bears books – the last 6 or 7 that we haven’t read – and went and sat in the corner with all the beanbag chairs. On our way in August had played with the sea turtle stuffed animal and brought that with him, adding to the pile. We read most of The Berenstain Bears Trick or Treat and then he needed the bathroom. On his way back in he chose a different spot, which was good as we were whispering in the other room as Ilana had a class. We finished reading the book and then decided to go to the playground for a few minutes before the Hebrew lesson.
A short, quick play. He did some climbing, then went up on the big play structure where some bigger kids were playing. Didn’t really interact with them, but wasn’t afraid about going around them and waiting his turn on the slide.
He was ready for the Hebrew lesson and we got there right at 3:15. He went in and talked to her for a few minutes, then she needed to finish an email so we looked around the classroom at all the Hebrew alphabets. They then sat down at the desks together and spent the whole time drawing pictures and talking about them. But the best part for him were the erasers and the pencil sharpeners. Because we’ve sheltered him and he hasn’t really used pencils, erasers, or pencil sharpeners yet. So he learned eraser מוֹחֵק and pencil עִפָּרוֹן and sharp חַד. She got him a bigger eraser to use and he erased things. He liked the eraser dust. Then he said “I really love the eraser.”
He first drew a sun, then he drew a machine מְכוֹנָה. Their drawings had lots of wheels גַלגַל, and when she asked what one machine did he said “It turns plants into crackers.” I think he was the one that asked about a pencil sharpener, and she brought him one. It was a little metal one, like the one he had found at the playground the other day. I showed him how it worked, and he had all sorts of questions. First he asked if you could get your finger in it. When we decided you couldn’t he asked what would happen if one was big enough. Then he was fascinated on how pencils get smaller, and he was asking how many times you could sharpen a pencil.
Near the end I took him over to the bathroom. On the toilet he said “I don’t think she’s gonna give me a treat.” and was fine with it. But when we went back she gave us each a crem-bo, which is basically a little cookie with a huge glob of marshmallow on top, all dipped in chocolate. She said it is called a winter ice cream and only available in the winter. August said it was better than the chocolate muffin from last week.
We took him over to rinse off his hands, then on the way back to the classroom he simply said “I’m tired of Hebrew class” and started walking away. The timing was fine, but the departure wasn’t. I got him to go back to the classroom and we got our stuff and said goodbye.
We went up to Carly’s classroom. He burst in and loudly asked “Are you ready to go home?” He was happy to hear she needed to go change as he wanted to play with the magnetic darts and dartboard by the office. We went and did that. He realized the darts would stick to other things and so was testing them out. They stuck to the bike, but when he did it on the handle (which has padding) it didn’t stick so well. He said “The black thing is semimagnetic”. I’m not sure where he got the semi- prefix from, but a good creation.
We walked home. When we got to Tal Garden August wanted to stop and play store. He and I stopped and let Carly keep going. He wanted to sing the ladybug song and told me “You can change up the body parts if you want.” Then “Dada, they don’t tell us how many spots there is. Could you put that in there?” So we figured out how to do that. The merry-go-round was a bus or something again and he said “We’re goin
g to Toys R Us” Earlier he had asked where his stuffed animals/dolls had come from and I had told him Baby Q was from Toys R Us. He has also asked about other toys in the past few days and I remember telling him the stroller was from Toys R Us.
Mainly we played on the spiral slide, climbing up and down it and sitting in it. We did a little store, buying all sorts of art supplies. Finally, he used the rope to pull himself of the ladder board thing for the first time. You can climb up them without the rope, but he’s never actually used the rope.
We left at 5:15. When we got to our park he wanted to stop to exercise. He spent 5 to 10 minutes going from machine to machine and playing/exercising.
We were home by 5:30. He had mac and cheese for dinner, then nursed. He was being a one-year old. He and Carly built a big Duplo house/building/something. He was talking about fires, and Carly asked where that came from, and if it was from a story. He said “Yes, 26-Story Treehouse.” He knocked that one down. Carly was giving him kisses and he said “I’m sick I’d smoocharoos.” The started making a new thing and Carly asked what they were making this time. He said “I don’t know. A fancy thing.”
She took him up to bed. He was being a baby, so I told him to dream about science centers. He came back down little after 8. We read Lulu Witch and part of Akiko on the Planet Smoo. He went and destroyed their Duplo structure. I took him up to the bathroom, then he was asleep by 9.
The bassoon:
Library:
Playground:
